James Handy, 1945 – 2026

TV and movie actor James Handy, 81, was found stabbed to death in Los Angeles on June 3; the son of Handy’s girlfriend was taken into custody. A native New Yorker, Handy had recurring roles in the TV series Alias, Profiler, Melrose Place, and NYPD Blue, and appeared in such films as Taps, Who Is Julia?, Burglar, Bird, K-9, Arachnophobia, The Rocketeer, Guarding Tess, Jumanji, Unbreakable, and Logan. A Vietnam War veteran (he fought with the 196^th Lightning Brigade), Handy became an anti-war activist on returning home. Although he appeared in several war movies, he had a dim view of many in that genre: “I hated Forrest Gump,” he said. “I just thought it was so full of crap. His character, Tom Hank’s, would never have survived Vietnam. I tried to explain this to people. They never would have made it through Vietnam with that guy.”